While you may be feeling mired in the day to day pressures of meeting documentation and regulation requirements along with meeting the variety of patient and institutional/organizational needs, spending time contemplating and writing about a better future may be helpful. While feeling like you’re always in a rush contributes to burnout for physicians and nurses, it’s worth it to make the time outside of work to do the exercise below.
Research by Laura King in 2008 demonstrated that visualizing a future in which you have realized your dreams, then writing about what you imagined along with steps you took to realize these life goals increases happiness. Writing about the steps you imagined taking and how you overcame obstacles provides you with potential concrete actions you can take to get you where you want to go.
So, here’s what you can do, set aside 20 minutes, spend the initial time imagining then write about your Fantastic Future just 3 years in the future. Do this for several days so that the picture of your better future becomes more clear. Be sure to incorporate your Best Self with “I am” the admired characteristic statements. Once you have the vision of this future, spend time writing about what steps you took to get there and how you overcame some obstacles.
One of the coaching exercises I use involves imagining a Future Self. In this exercise the person comes up with an avatar of a sort which represents the way s/he would like to be in the future. My avatar is like a Klimt woman, tall, elegant, dignified and has something inspiring about her. Recently, I saw Woman in Gold and was inspired to write this post as I connected again with this image.
Who might be your avatar? Write about your fantastic future and an image which comes to mind representing her or him. Share your thoughts. For developing your personal plan to achieve your fantastic future contact me.
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Dina, 203.744.YOU3 (9683)
Revitalize Your Life
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